The Carriage Horse controversy in New York has always spoken to me of the need for a new and wiser and more truthful understanding of animals. Since World War II, 90 per cent of Americans have left farms and rural life – and the world of domesticated animals – to work and live in cities, the world of domesticated pets.
They have lost touch with the natural world, and with the world of animals.
There are two truths in conflict in New York. One view sees the horses as helpless, unable to speak in any way, at the mercy of utterly immoral and dishonest human beings.
The other truth sees then as healthy, content and unusually well cared for. The conflict is about which truth prevails. It is significant that the first truth is believed – without question or contradiction – by the city’s mayor. Two thirds of the city’s residents believe the second truth.
The people in New York City who are seeking to cannibalize the carriage trade and drive the horses out of New York believe that the horses are dumb, helpless and vulnerable. They believe (most, not all of them) that it is cruel for horses to pull carriages and that it is especially inhuman for horses to be working in New York City, going to and from their work on crowded and congested streets and breathing air polluted by cars. Given the choice of reducing the number of cars in the city, or reducing the number of horses, he city is seeking to move a certain number of horses into new stables in Central Park and banning them from the rest of the city forever.
If you have followed the controversy for any length of time, or seen the City Council hearings on the fate of the horses last Friday, you will have seen two strikingly different versions of truth regarding the horses. People may be forgiven for being confused, they hear the horses are safe and healthy and then read horror story after horror story online and in press conferences of horses being abused, tortured, worked to death. In our world, truth is elusive, facts seem to belong to the loudest voices sometimes, not necessarily the most truthful.
I have been living with animals, studying them, writing about them, reading about them, talking to trainers and behaviorists and veterinarians, written nearly a dozen books about them over the course of more than 15 years. I am by no means the most knowledgeable person about horses or any other animal, but I am aware of those who are knowledgeable and studied them closely. I believe in science, I believe in the value and integrity of veterinary care, I devour the books and journals of behaviorists and biologists and researchers and animal lovers.
It is my work, and to some extent, my life.
I can’t tell you what to believe or who to believe, I don’t do that. I can only tell you what I believe, and you must transcend all of the arguments and bluster and outrage and accusation and corruption and self-interest to rise above it and make up your own mind. That is the job of the citizen or the animal lover, that is how it’s supposed to work.
I do not believe the horses are stupid, weak or vulnerable. Horses have lived and worked with humans for thousands of years. I have been to the New York stables a dozen times to see for myself, I have read the reports of scores of well-qualified vets and trainers who have done the same. I know many horse lovers and talk with them often. I have a horse living on my farm, the second one to live here.
The animal rights movement often claims to speak for the horses. But horses can very clearly speak for themselves, just not in our words. It is very simple to spot a depressed or sick horse. You can tell by the coat, their eyes, their tail, the way they hold their head, they noises they make, the way they eat their food, hold their ears, the way they relate to people and being touched. It is not a sign of sadness for a horse to lower his head, it is a sign of calm.
It is not a sign of lameness for a horse to life – cock – a rear leg. It is a sign of safety and contentment. Abused and depressed animals are quite easy to recognize. So are healthy and well cared for animals. The much-monitored and regulated carriage trade has every reason in the world to keep their horses healthy and content, they have no reason to abuse them.
Working horses are not harassed or discouraged or exhausted by work. Like my border collies, they live to work, it is bred in their genes. They live to work with people and attach to them powerfully. Except in the most extreme weather conditions, it is never depressing or pitiful for working horses to work, or for working dogs or elephants to work. Every trainer will tell you that the cruelty comes when horses are ignored or abandoned on farms or rescue facilities, left to do nothing but eat and drop manure. Those are the ones to pity.
(For the record, so are the nine billion animals suffering in vast industrial factory farms, in many cases in horrible conditions. The demonstrators in New York might do well to take a weekend off from harassing the children riding in the carriages and bus on up to a factory farm and draw attention to the animals who really are being abused, do not get fresh food five weeks of vacation, exercise, attention and loving care.)
This idea of the horses as being pitiful and suffering is a human projection of our own needs and desires onto animals. We do it all of the time, especially to dogs. More than 300,000 dogs are now on daily medication for anxiety and depression, our latest mass projection of our human emotional garbage onto them. Now, we want to do it to the horses, moving them into lifeless ghettos without purpose or sending them to slaughter so we can feel good about ourselves. They are not us, they are not like us. That is the new understanding we need to face and fight for.
Since most of us know nothing about horses or other domesticated animals any longer, and they can’t speak to us in words, it is the simplest thing for us to project our own hurts and fears and emotions onto them. When the animal rights people speak of the horses, it is always to describe them as sad and suffering, helpless and victimized. When the speak of the carriage drivers, it is always to describe them in the most vulgar and ugly ways – drunks, thugs, abusers, torturers, greedy and uncaring, scheming and dishonest.
This is the first step in the de-humanization process, make the victims so despised and vilified it becomes easy to destroy and abuse them.
In this version of the horse is always suffering, the person is always immoral and reprehensible. The horses are always being injured and maimed and killed, the people who own them are always hiding it, no matter what they say, or the police say, or the inspectors say. This truth is absolute and unwavering.
There is no balance or nuance, a warning sign for those sincerely seeking truth. There are always greys, of course, the world is not black and white. Every horse is not adored, every carriage driver is not a saint. Things happen, to people and to horses – sickness, death, greed and bad fortune. It is not the whole truth, it is not the point. In New York, it seems clear the horses fear much better than many people. This is the toll on our lives, this is the toll for their lives.
In New York, 55,000 people have no homes. In New York, every horse has food and shelter. Every horse has a home.
Most horses in nature, or on farms live hard and short lives. Horses in the wild – there are virtually no horses left in the wild – suffer terribly from vicious competition within the herd, diseases, a shortage of food and water, exposure day and night to the elements, hunters, predators, injury, the complete lack of medical care. Without work, they are hunted and slaughtered. Many horses in nature are found starved to death, or ravaged by wolves, or killed by competitors in their herd. Many die of the many diseases that abound in nature, and from the absence of any care.
Horses without work are in grave peril in America. More than 160,000 were sent to often brutal slaughter in Mexico and Canada last year alone. Scores of Asian elephants will soon join them in the name of loving animals and giving them the right to die. Horses and other animals without work are without protection in our culture. A carriage horses who works in New York for five years is luckier than the tens of thousands of horses who are packed onto trailers and have nails drilled into their heads.
Horses in nature do not live longer or as long as carriage horses. There are no inspections by vets, no city regulations, no people to care for them. Working horses like the carriage horses have never lived in nature, they are too big and hungry to survive there. They have been bred to work and carry loads and pull carriages with people, they have never lived any other way and could not survive any other way.
Every horse trainer, owner, vet or behaviorist I have read about or spoken with – there are many – has told me the same thing. Working horses in the carriage trade are the lucky ones.
The horses in New York are not unsafe, none have been killed in traffic accidents in modern recorded history, four have been injured in accidents (three killed) in the past 30 years.
The mayor and the animal rights groups in New York City have chosen only to believe the First Truth, they will not consider any other: The horses can only be seen through the prism of abuse. If you talk to any of the animal right demonstrators in New York or any of the leaders of the animal rights groups, you will find that few, if any, have ever ridden a horse, or lived with animals who are not dogs or cats.
They seem drawn to emotionalizing animals and identifying them as victims, even when they are not. I can’t say without further examination what their issues are, but I can report that a psychiatrist who works with patients at Bellevue Hospital in New York and has studied the animal rights movement believes that most of the volunteers and demonstrators are so angry and dogmatic because they have suffered some kind of abuse and mistreatment in their lives and are quick to project their anger and suffering onto the horses and especially onto the mostly male carriage drivers. Invariably, they see as being evil and utterly without moral values.
“I haven’t examined the horses, I am not a vet,” she said, “but I am comfortable saying that kind of anger and rigidity is most often a symptom, not a political issue.”
So we all have a choice to make.
I have chosen the Second Truth, as have most New Yorkers, to the surprise of many: The real abuse is in removing the horses from their work and lives, not in keeping them there. The horses are happy, well-cared for and content. A hundred experts have come to New York to study them in recent years, every one of them has reached that conclusion.
That is also my conclusion, my belief. My truth.
If you really love a horse, get to know them a bit, and I believe you will see what I have seen and believe what I have come to believe: the horses belong in New York, there are among our last connections to nature, a symbol of our humanity and willingness to sacrifice cars and traffic and money for animals that have served us for thousands of years and can serve us for thousands more if we will only let them be and stop dumping our shit onto them.
I hope the City Council rejects the mayor’s proposal to remove the horses from the streets of New York and turn them into a tourists-only exhibit in Central Park, like the carousel or children’s zoo. The carriage trade is popular, well-regulated, successful and independent. I hope they stay that way, for the sake of the drivers, but also for the sake of the horses.
The carriage trade has pulled off something that is nearly unprecedented: they are keeping domesticated animals in a big city, treating them well, keeping them safe, keeping them among people who badly need to see them. And earning money, helping the environment and paying taxes, They are a powerful antidote to the greed and development that so many people say is choking the life out of New York. I believe the horses need to stay where we can all see them and know them and love them.
My truth.